EXACT CHANGE

By Stephen D. Rogers

I couldn't make up a story like this. Any if anybody else did, no one would believe it. I had trouble believing it myself.

For three years I'd played the same lottery number, week in and week out, rain or shine. I no longer really expected to win. I only knew that if I ever skipped a week, that's when my number would come up.

Then where would I be?

Right about here.

Screwed.

The kid behind the counter kept his hand on the ticket. "That will be a dollar."

I opened my wallet and handed him a twenty. This wasn't my usual place but I knew I'd never escape Phil in under two hours and today's lottery game would be closed by then. That Phil loved to hear himself talk, not that probably even he listened.

Unfortunately, he was the only guy I knew with a jigsaw to lend.

"Do you have anything smaller?"

"What?" I focused on the kid again.

He pointed at a handwritten sign: NEED 1'S AND 5'S. "I put that up at the beginning of my shift but all anybody had was twenties."

"So?"

"So if you don't have anything smaller than a twenty, I'm going to have to give you your change in dimes. Maybe nickels."

"Dimes." What was he going to do, count me out a hundred and ninety dimes? What the hell was I going to do with a hundred and ninety dimes, clean out a penny candy store?

"That's all I have left." He shrugged. "The customer before you took the last of my quarters."

"I don't have anything smaller. A twenty is what I got. That's why I gave it to you."

The kid sighed as he opened the register. "It's not my fault they didn't go to the bank this morning."

"Well it sure as hell ain't my fault."

"One. Two. Three. Four. Five." He started stacking dimes on the counter. "Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten."

"What are you doing?"

He looked at me as if I'd lost my mind. "I'm giving you your change."

"Are you serious? You expect me to waltz out of here with a hundred and ninety dimes?"

"Less if I run out. Then it's nickels." I heard him dig his fingers into a pile of coin. "Maybe pennies."

"No. I don't care what you have to do. I'm not leaving here with fifteen pounds of pennies in my pocket."

"You could buy nineteen more lottery tickets. Or nutrition bars. Those ones there are on sale. You could get thirty-eight of them."

"I don't need thirty-eight nutrition bars. What is need is nineteen dollars. A ten. A five. Four ones."

He shook his head. "I already told you. There's nothing but twenties in the register."

Phil was waiting for me. If I left here now without my lottery ticket, stopping again somewhere else, I was going to be late. Phil would complain for at least half an hour. Then he'd forgive me and start in with the stories I'd already heard a hundred times before.

"Forget it. Just give me back my twenty."

"I don't know how to void a lottery ticket."

"That's not my fault either. Look, I have to be somewhere. I'll just take my ticket and go."

"Not without paying. My drawer would be short and I'm not losing my job because you don't have exact change. What about your car? You don't have four quarters floating around in there?"

I never kept change in my car because of fingerprints. "Do me a favor and just loan me the buck. I'll swing by tomorrow and replace it with two. That's a hundred percent interest."

"I'm bust."

"You don't have a dollar?"

The kid copped an attitude. "Hey, neither do you."

"No but I have a twenty."

"Well today a twenty's not good enough." He paused. "What about a charge card?"

"I don't use them."

"Everybody uses them."

I glanced at my watch. There wasn't time to risk finding another lottery agent before the game closed. "Tell you what. Those twenties in the drawer that are such a burden? Give them to me. Now. And I'll take my ticket while you're at it."

"What?"

"I'm sick of screwing around. Empty out the register."

"You don't even have a gun."

"I don't need one. I'll simply beat the crap out of you with my bare hands. Then, if it makes you happy, I'll come back later and fill you full of holes."

"Are you really robbing me?" He bit his bottom lip.

"Really and truly."

He put two twenties on the counter.

"All of it."

"That is all of it."

I gave him an icy stare. "What about all these twenties you've been complaining about?"

"I drop them into the safe as soon as I can make a hundred. It's company policy."

"And of course you can't open the safe."

He shook his head. "There's a slot in the top where I slip in the money. Only the managers know the combination."

I took the two twenties, one of which was mine anyway. "The ticket?"

He passed me the ticket. "Here."

"Thanks. Keep the change."

I was ten minutes late when I knocked on Phil's door but I was able to cut him off because this time I had a story to tell. He just about choked to death he was laughing so hard.

Phil handed me the jigsaw and waved me away soon after I arrived, probably hoping it would be easier to catch his breath once I was out of his sight, so there was a silver lining to the whole fiasco after all.

Then I caught that day's winning number. My ticket, a ticket that couldn't be turned in because the lottery computer would put me at the scene of the crime, hit for an amount that I can't even bear to repeat.

I traded my fortune for a crumpled twenty and a free ticket.

I should have taken the nutrition bars.